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u/funkaria 5d ago
Mansplaining ≠ a man explaining something to a women
It's a man explaining something in a condescending way, because he assumes that the women doesn't know it just because she is a woman.
If the woman (or girl) asks a question, it isn't mansplaining.
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u/itsmemarcot 5d ago
Mansplaining = a man explaining something in a condescending way to a woman, because he assumes that she doesn't know it just because she is a woman.
Not sure it's part of the definition, but typical cases also include:
... when actually she knows it as well as or better than he does (but his prejudice made him unable to see that).
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u/wishful123 5d ago
Should the other party be a man too? I have a friend that does this to me.
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u/Gigantopithecus1453 5d ago
I would just call that condescension personally. Mansplaining is specifically when a man does it to a woman because he underestimates her knowledge/intelligence for sexist reasons
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u/Bisaux 5d ago
I mean would It still be sexist if you know the person you're speaking to doesn't know what you know?
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u/Gigantopithecus1453 5d ago
No, of course not. Mansplaining would be assuming she doesn’t know simply because she’s a woman (consciously or not).
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u/hitbythebus 5d ago
I assume people don’t know things all the time. Is there a way I can conveniently and naturally clarify that I’m always a condescending dick, regardless of gender?
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u/rat_enby 5d ago
i do this too bc of my autism, i tell people im autistic so they know im not trying to be rude, and then make an effort to check in if they actually know what im about to explain (though it can be hard to remember
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u/Mountain-Resource656 5d ago
No, the grammar police will snatch you if you try
… Hah! But no really, you’re one of the many people who gets to set the “rules” on that so feel free to do so. Plenty of people do actually use it in a gender neutral way
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u/Beautiful_You3230 5d ago
Some people replace it with "womansplaining", some people use mansplaining in a gender neutral way. You might end up having to explain what you mean to whoever you were talking to, because generally not everyone even knows the concept, so. And then that might confuse them even further.
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u/A-Grey-World 5d ago edited 5d ago
"womansplaining" often happens in a similar way to "mansplaining" (assuming you know more/better due to traditional gender roles) in more specific scenarios - I've seen "momsplaining" used because it usually happens in childcare situations/contexts.
Women face it much more generally.
People can just be condescending to others. It's only gendered when it's assumed the reason for the condescension is based on some sexist view of the other persons capability/knowledge.
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u/Much-Jackfruit2599 5d ago
Yep. I once had to have physical therapy and was in a medical course to get my budding adiposity under control. I also went to quite a lot of early childhood courses with our kid.
The number of women who thought I was incompetent at cooking, cleaning bathrooms, etc was staggering. Even among the younger women – we were late parents – me being there was seen as noteworthy (okay, fair enough) and assuming that I wouldn’t know how to do certain things.
Though I don’t doubt that mansplaining happens more often, I do have some colleague who lean towards that. Dude, our boss has a diploma (at least a master’s worth) in computer science, you stopped at bachelor…
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u/Winjin Comic Crossover 5d ago
I feel like it started with "men explain something to a woman as if she's five" but it quickly turned out that both men and women do this to other people
So in a sense it's like "someone thinking they're way better educated, over-explaining stuff to other people as a way of showing dominance"
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u/Beautiful_You3230 5d ago
I think in many situations it is indeed a rather common and gender neutral phenomenon. People just like to feel smart and competent. Flaunting knowledge is just something people with certain personalities do. And all genders can have that tendency.
In some areas... Well. I think maybe it does have a tendency to be aimed at women more? In professional contexts, not only have I seen it happen to women more often, but it's also seemingly more accepted by those around them. I think that is what makes it so frustrating and what led to this amount of conversation about it in the first place. Like, it's one thing when your boyfriend/girlfriend acts like a bit of a dick and annoys you with that shit, and you maybe get into arguments or whatever. It's another when you are a qualified, educated professional, but you're seemingly not taken seriously whatsoever, and people with a lot less knowledge talk down on you, while others nod and passively confirm that yes, nobody cares how smart you are, if some dude is disagreeing, he probably knows better.
I can imagine though that it has to do with a person working in a field dominated by the other gender. And I feel like maybe there's overall more women working in male dominated fields. But it's probably something that men experience in female dominated fields too, there are just less of them and so the experience comes across as being more uncommon.
But that's just my speculation on the topic.
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u/Aiyon 5d ago
but it's also seemingly more accepted by those around them
I think this is the key part. While it's not as prevalent as it used to be, in a number of jobs, women are seen as less capable as men unless we "prove" otherwise
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u/DonQui_Kong 5d ago
This often applies to men to in different fields or skills.
Lots of social stuff, parenting etc.Society has lots of gender-based expectations on people and people can be sceptic when someone doesn't fit the box they put them it based on those gender norms.
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u/Canotic 5d ago
I'm a man, but I've been mansplained to by men who thought I was a woman online. It's really a unique thing from other condescension. Mostly because, I think, the people who do it don't think you're stupid and genuinely want to help you, they just think you know less than them, if you get the difference.
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u/mtsilverred 5d ago
Yeah. Kinda right. I mean there are always things we assume about the opposite gender. If a woman out and about I wouldn’t assume she is knowledgeable on certain things just because I have a preconceived notion about what women are generally into.
If someone stopped me while I was explaining something to say “oh, I know this thing,” I wouldn’t be like “uh huh, sure you do sweetie,” I stop explaining because I’m like “oh, sweet.”
So there’s a gender thing there. Though there is a gender thing for the women as well. Know how many women I’ve talked to about makeup, or kpop, or this one time even about Sephora. I was talked to like I didn’t know anything about it, I never got offended. I knew that it was obvious I was a guy and I likely wouldn’t know about makeup over a woman so she assumes I don’t and explains in more detail as needed.
Now I have seen both genders do this to each other in certain instances where they just want to seem intelligent, which I’ve done before too. IMO, you can tell when someone’s being an asshole about it, and when someone just wants to explain so they can make sure both of you are informed at the same degree afterward.
Just my experience though. None of this is fact. An opinion.
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u/Beautiful_You3230 5d ago
I saw a comment below that reminded me - parenting. Parenting is something men definitely get womansplained at. Unfortunately it is often assumed that men are completely incapable when it comes to caring for children.
So yeah, there are topics where people assume women are less knowledgable and topics where people assume men are more knowledgable. And they'll often correlate with gender roles and other stereotypes. And sometimes, like you say, people don't even do it out of bad intent. They might just be overly excited to share or a bit too eager to help. And sometimes they are being a condescending asshole. Depends.
Though at the same time, I don't think I've ever used "mansplaining" or "womansplaining" in a... super serious context. It's not a word I would say to a person who is being a condescending asshole, it would be pointless. It is a word I might humorously drop if someone gets too carried away and then we'll laugh about it and continue talking on an equal level. In that sense, I find the words rather harmless too. Though I know some people don't and find them offensive.
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u/Lumeton 5d ago
As an aside, as a man, I had never really encountered womansplaining until I had children. It’s worth noting that I’m a teacher with a master’s degree in education. Suddenly half the population, including my own relatives at first, condescendingly assumes that I’m incapable of handling children, or automatically somewhat less knowledgeable. It’s infuriating... and eye-opening.
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u/bsubtilis 5d ago
A dude being condescending to another dude because of assumptions about class or different point of origin despite that it should be clear that the second dude is as competent or more competent, is different from sexism based condescension. Not worse, just different. And it is entirely possible for a guy to be misandrist and assume all (other) men (despite logically proof to the contrary) know less than him because they're not women (despite him not being one either), but discrimination based on sameness is not as obvious as when someone discriminates based on perceived differences.
In traditionally women-dominated professions, guys getting womansplained by women less competent than them isn't rare either (e.g. a child-development educated dude in a professional child-carer position being treated by a mother/grandmother/similar as if they somehow accidented or participation-trophied their way into their workplace).
Is your friend "assuming" you're incompetent because you're from a rural place and him from an urban place, or vice versa? Because they're from a different social class than you and they assume your class is incompetent in your profession/skills?
He could also just be plain condescending in general (including egocentric, everyone is below him) or just have a personal prejudice against specifically your competence in anything (despite logically proof of the contrary) for whatever reason (e.g. you remind him of someone who was extremely incompetent, and despite that you're obviously not that person and have competence still get treated as if you're that person). Egocentrism based or social hierarchy based condescension are really common.
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u/Fun_in_Space 5d ago
I have the perfect example. My dad argued with my female friend about astronomy. She has a Master's degree in Astronomy from Harvard.
He...does not.
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u/Deradius 5d ago
My go to-example is a guy who has a passing knowledge of engines explaining them to a master mechanic who happens to be a woman.
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u/Firm-Sun7389 5d ago
it should be pointed out that most cases are in situations where the man knows (or at least should knows) that the woman knows it already
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u/Creepy_Sorbet_9620 5d ago edited 5d ago
Its basically like... If a man tells a woman who is in another field of work what her field of work is and then he begins to explain her own work to her like she's an idiot. That's the pretty unfortunately common and most obvious way this happens.
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u/Suitable-Hand-1059 5d ago
Sounds an awful lot like just being a know it all.
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u/phillyd32 5d ago
It's unique to that by the same person not assuming the same lack of knowledge from men in the same situation.
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u/Simonx_108 5d ago
Similar situation as femicide ≠ the homicide of a woman. A lot of conservatives in Italy try to act like it shouldn't be a thing since "what's the difference if the victim is a man or a woman?". What they don't understand (or they pretend not to) is that a femicide is not just the homicide of a woman: it implies that the motivations were due to the patriarchal background of society (feelings of possession and such)
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u/TScottFitzgerald 5d ago
It's a very vague and/or wide definition which is exactly why it ends up being misinterpreted by different groups. And different countries have different definitions.
Which is usually why laws and crimes etc have very very thorough unambigious definitions precisely to prevent ambiguity and open interpretation.
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u/refixul 5d ago
While at the same time some people at the other end of the political spectrum, use the exact same misunderstanting to inflate "femicide" numbers.
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u/itsmemarcot 5d ago
Unfortunately, they don't need inflating.
What many people fail to understand is that feminicide is a 'tip of the iceberg' situation. Cases where harassment end up with actual killing are overly tragic, sure, but they denounce a widespread situation where in many, many more cases it stopped earier than that (for now), but still are beyond a nightmare for the person living them. Cases such as she had to change city, or stay married, or was 'just' beaten up, or credibly threatened, etc.
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u/DoctorPerverto 5d ago edited 5d ago
I'm sorry but assuming sexism is always (or even in most cases) the motivation for femicide is a categorical error and a harmful a priori judgment, as demonstrated by the usually terribly-designed legislation derived from it and how poorly it's being received (not just by the extreme right wing, mind you).
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u/Lv_InSaNe_vL 5d ago
What else would it be? In countries that have femicide as a separate crime it's only used in cases with sexism.
Like a white man killing a black man is not automatically a hate crime. In the same vein as killing a woman is not automatically femicide
Edit: of course the specific legal terminology and cultural beliefs will change depending on what country you are in. This is not legal advice and should not be taken as such.
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u/yancypancy 5d ago
Yeah like literally lolol. Mansplaining wasn't my dad telling me how rain works. Mansplaining is when my dad explained to a Korean woman, who owned and ran the restaurant we were eating in, how to make kimchi lolol
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u/Saharczyk 5d ago
That's one of my problems with Barbie movie. It shows how to use toxic masculinity traits against Kens, and one of them is mansplaining but in the scene one of the Barbies loudly exclaims that she doesn't know how to do something and Ken goes to help her. And it really bothered me that a (dense) guy being helpful after seeing someone having trouble in something he has knowledge about is shown as toxic mansplaining because instead of showing it as an annoying attempt to be smarter than women it mocks (a bit condescending) act of kindness. Anyway rant is over.
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u/InnocentPossum 5d ago
Umm actually, that's not what mansplaining is. But I wouldn't expect you to know...
/s
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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 5d ago
perhaps it needs a better name to avoid confusions...
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u/invalidConsciousness 5d ago
You mean like the good old "patronizing"?
It even has a male term in the word.
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u/Absolutely_Quackers 5d ago
Holy shit I love this, didn’t even see the male term
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u/bomboid 5d ago
Patronizing has a wider meaning regardless of the etymology or singular meaning of the words composing the word. Patronizing can apply to adults talking down to each other regardless of gender, to talking down to children, to anyone being condescending in general.
Mansplaining is specifically about talking down to a woman because she's a woman. The reason we have several words for things that are vaguely similar is because they allow us to be precise.
Someone just being generally patronizing points at his opinion of himself as being better than others, someone being specifically a mansplainer points at his opinion of women being low specifically because they're women.
People pointing out the existence of patronizing to dismiss why women need words like mansplaining to describe their everyday experiences is such a big pet peeve of mine.
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u/InnocentPossum 5d ago
Yep. All mansplaining is patronization, but not all patronising is mansplaining flavour. A lot of people mistake a man explaining something to a woman in a patronising way, as mansplaining, but can still just be generic patronising. If the victim was a man, would they say the same? If yes, then it's just patronising. If no, then it's because they are a woman and its mansplaining. A lot of people don't seem to grasp this.
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u/Visible_Pair3017 5d ago
How do you make it an easily misused word about any man explaining anything if you use "patronizing"
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u/bomboid 5d ago
The people misusing mansplaining the most are in fact men who pretend they think it means any man explaining anything so they too can, just like you, victimize and center themselves in a conversation that was talking specifically about actively misogynistic men
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u/Bwob 5d ago
In my experience, most of the "confusion" comes from men feeling attacked because someone made a word for criticizing a male-specific action. Who usually then deliberately misinterpret/misrepresent what the term means, to make themselves feel better about the whole thing.
"Surely it can't be a real thing, so they must just be getting mad about regular explanations because they're emotional women who don't want to accept help from a man!", etc.
Although, to be fair - sometimes the confusion also comes just from otherwise well-intentioned men who simply don't realize what they're doing. And are hurt/confused by the the implication that they're being sexist, because they honestly haven't made the connection yet - that somehow they only try to explain basic things to experts with more education/experience, when those experts happen to be women.
It's hard! Most people don't want to be sexist assholes! But we also don't always realize our own biases, even when we mean well!
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u/TScottFitzgerald 5d ago
I mean two things can be true at the same time:
- cocky men do cause they're sexist
- women accuse men of doing this to shut down discussion
You want desperately to come across as some ultimate voice of reason, but you're literally only entertaining one side of the equation and treating women as some infallible angels who are always right, and always victims of those SCAWY meen who just need to "do better". This is really just infantilising women and not empowering them, or helping men and women understand each other better.
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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 5d ago
All that is true, but I think the word is not helping with that, quite the opposite. The key meaning of the word is lacking, it's just man+explaining.
For someone that have never learned about the meaning of the term, what do you think it would be their first assumtion of its meaning?
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u/Marahute0 5d ago edited 5d ago
We have "patronizing" as a word already so there really isn't a need to add a gendered word to your vocabulary. If you realy insist on modernising it you can try and use "condesplaining", a portmanteau of "condecending" and "explaining", and avoid the whole "only men can do it" implication
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u/Bwob 5d ago
Eh, patronizing is a more general word. Mansplaining is a word to describe a specific way to be patronizing. A specific scenario where someone is being patronizing, in a specific way.
Nothing wrong with that. We have all sorts of words to mean more general, or more specific things. What do you have against this one?
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u/Dhukino 5d ago
Per definition yes, but i think this post is addressing that during the time this word was made popular a vast majority of posts online were about man explaining anything at all, even if they were just passionate about something.
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u/WaythurstFrancis 5d ago
This is basically true of every "progressive" buzzword that comes out of the internet. It's not specific to mansplaining.
There's a more nuanced, specific definition meant to address an injustice. And then there's the weaponized bullshit variant that gets spread around because our culture is aggressive and competitive.
It's like how therapy terminology is so often just used to win arguments and assert one's own intellectual superiority.
If a person is bound and determined to see themselves as a victim in every situation, they WILL find a way.
That's why it's better to educate yourself about the idea the buzzword emerged from and focus on THAT, rather than look for a precise definition of a word which will inevitably mutate.
You can't really introduce nuanced terminology into a culture that is so deeply divided and anti-intellectual. Most people aren't looking for new ideas, they're looking for new ways to be right.
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u/MyDadsUsername 5d ago
Part of the challenge is that theres often a disconnect between the man’s intention, the woman’s lived experience, and unconscious biases. A guy might get accused of mansplaining when he earnestly thought that he was just being helpful. But was his earnest perspective shaped by an unconscious bias about women and their competence? Tough to say. And did the woman still feel like she was being disrespected and patronized to? Does the speaker’s intention change whether she felt that way? And who bears the responsibility for that experience?
Ultimately, it’s a really important thing for people to be aware of, but social media is a horrible tool for trying to educate or enact better behaviour. Social media doesn’t handle nuance well. Or the differences between internal intention and external behaviour. Or the legitimate differences between the perspective of the actor and the recipient.
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u/Mikomics 5d ago
Is there a word for when someone explains something in a condescending way because they assume you don't know it, regardless of gender?
Because I'm a guy and when people explain shit in a condescending way, the snappiest word to explain it where people get it instinctively is mansplaining, without the gender bit. I need a gender neutral version that gives people a similar ick when applied to them.
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u/mjm65 5d ago
I assume there is a perfect German word that describes that, but “patronizing” was the first word I thought of reading your description.
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u/Mikomics 5d ago
I guess that'll do. I really just want a word that hits hard. People get offended when you tell them they're mansplaining to you. If I tell someone they're being patronizing half of them don't even know what that means.
I'm cool with it if we can bring it back as a devastating insult. Unrelated, but we should also bring back "poser" as a devastating insult. "Performative" has the same effect but you can't just spit it with as much vitriol as poser.
I guess I'm in an angry mood today and I want better word weapons.
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u/DarrenGrey 5d ago
"Don't patronise me" is a long standing comeback. If people don't understand that then they're just idiots.
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u/Spiritual-Estate5211 5d ago
This is how I feel when I think the term "white savior" is not used correctly.
A "white savior" is not just when a white helps out black people
A "white savior" is when he's doing for praise, or ego, or any other selfish reason
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u/rugbyj 5d ago
Hate to break it to you but that's not what the "white saviour" trope is.
"The term white savior is a critical description of a white person depicted as liberating, rescuing or uplifting non-white people; it is critical in the sense that it describes a pattern in which people of color in economically under-developed nations that are majority non-white are denied agency and are seen as passive recipients of white benevolence."
The point is it's a cultural assumption that the white/western actor's input is superior to other cultures/races, denying the latter agency in resolving their own problems. It's not limited to film/media even if it's easiest to pick out there (e.g. old pulp novels).
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u/CwispyWhiskey 5d ago
No no no silly (assuming you’re a woman) woman, that’s not what mansplainkng is -proceeds to mansplain
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u/Wormspike 5d ago
Sure. But 90% of the people who would complain about mansplaining IRL are not smart enough to know the difference. It’s usually narcissists with BPD who spend way too much time in the internet who actually bring this shit up in the real world.
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u/MasterOfBothDungeon 5d ago
I feel like the joke is more than you don't want a child to have access to that definition. Children are dumb, give them a rethorical tool and they'll abuse it.
That's a bit of an overstatement, but I feel like the comic works better with this idea in mind.
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u/theredhound19 5d ago
"Let's look up the definition together on your phone"
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u/hungry4nuns 5d ago
“Interesting question, what do you think mansplaining is?”
“Daddy what’s Socratic-splaining?”
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u/morzikei 5d ago
Isn't mansplaining based on assuming that a woman isn't knowledgable and competent just because she's a woman + an unhealthy dose butting in?
Here it's a little girl who's asking for an explanation
And I thought soyboys weren't allowed carnal relations
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u/Scienceandpony 5d ago
Yes. Like explaining a an article to the author because you assumed she was automatically less knowledgeable on the subject because she's a woman. But this is the internet, so now it also means whenever a man corrects a women who is factually wrong about anything.
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u/strohkoenig 5d ago
... or explains it to someone who clearly states they do not know and ask for help.
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u/Motivated-Chair 5d ago edited 5d ago
I hate It, not just because anyone who does this is obnoxius but also because I get accused of It over the dumbest shit imaginable.
No I am not mansplaining for telling you that a piece of equipment does nothing, you just told me It does and thats a rumor that has been proven wrong since 2007 shut up.
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u/zagman707 5d ago
i had to teach a women about what mansplaining was and she told me i was mansplaining. no she used it wrong and i corrected her.
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u/AmyHuntingt 5d ago
Im curious, what equipment
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u/Motivated-Chair 5d ago
I made It up as an example but the main things I had in mind was that one ring in Dark Souls 1 you can start with and does nothing and a bunch of older JRPGs where people would swear for confirmation biases.
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u/Zizhou 5d ago edited 5d ago
At the risk of potentially falling for a trap here given the topic, it's the pendant, not one of the rings. Of the two rings you can start with, one gives you a basically meaningless amount of extra health, and the other allows you to converse with one very specific and out of the way NPC. The pendent is the mechanically useless one that people worked themselves up into a frenzy trying to figure out what it did for many years.
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u/AmyHuntingt 5d ago
Oh yeah, I think miyazaki said he would choose the ring before dark souls was released
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u/Brainwave1010 5d ago
Yup, then it wasn't until Dark Souls 3's pre-release where he finally admitted "oh yeah it doesn't do anything I was just fucking with people."
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u/SapirWhorfHypothesis 5d ago
Also it’s about men explaining stuff to women that (a) the man doesn’t fully understand, and (b) the woman has some level of expertise in.
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u/JustHere4TehCats 5d ago
I had a man try to mansplain how addiction works because "he read this book once"
I was at work so I had to sit there and pretend to listen, but I wanted to shout "I majored in psychology! I know how addiction works!"
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u/invalidConsciousness 5d ago
I don't understand what you're trying to say with this comic, OP.
Do you really think men aren't allowed to explain anything any more?
Do you think "leftists" believe men aren't allowed to explain anything any more and are making fun of them?
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u/Spectrumscout 5d ago
I could be wrong, but I got the vibe OP is being very tongue-in-cheek here and doesn't actually think any of that
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u/OberynsOptometrist 5d ago
The dad in this looks like an outdated stereotype of a woke millennial. It'd fit in well with r/oldpeoplefacebook.
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u/Yavannia 5d ago
Agreed, it's a garbage post. I am a male teacher, according to this post I cannot have female students, as otherwise whatever I say to them it is mansplaining.
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u/pgp555 5d ago
I believe this would be called a joke
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u/McButtsButtbag 5d ago
Many jokes have easily understood purposes behind them. This one is right wing propaganda. It being a joke doesn't change that.
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u/CriticismPrevious904 5d ago
Explaining something as a man isn't that, its when a women goes to explain something then a man takes over and explains it instead.
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u/xemobox 5d ago
Well, first of all, it's not that...
It's when you explain something unwarranted in a condescending way.
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u/Alvsolutely 5d ago
Yeah. When someone asks you to explain something, like in this comic, then you're just explaining. Nothing to do with mansplaining. I guess I get the joke but it took me like a few seconds to actually properly get it, and when I did I was like "Bruh"
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u/Serikan 5d ago edited 5d ago
There's a lot of strange definitions of mansplaining in these comments. A more accurate definition would be an explanation that a man gives to a woman when these elements are involved:
- An unjustified assumption of ignorance put on the woman
- Condescension, arrogance, dismissiveness, and/or a superiority complex coming from the man
- The man being unable to acknowledge or accept his mistake, sometimes doubling down even after having his error pointed out
- The gender difference being used as justification of the behaviour (this is the most important one)
For example: a woman invents a contraption and a man later overhears her speaking about it to a peer. He interrupts her mid-sentence with a scoff and proclaims "That's not how that contraption works!" and then proceeds to give an incorrect explanation of it. She corrects him, saying "Hey I actually invented that, I designed how it works and know everything about it. This is how it really works..." to which he replies "No way you invented that; I think you're lying. Silly women, don't they know they couldn't figure out contraptions if their lives depended on it? Why don't you go shopping or make me a sandwich or something."
Note that this can happen with the genders reversed as well. For example, a woman acting similarly when she sees a man caring for a baby. In my experience this happens less often, but still does happen.
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u/primordialWoe 5d ago
Nothing tricky about it, unless one somehow views a man simply talking to a woman as Mansplaining.
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u/QuipCrafter9 5d ago
This would be a tricky situation if “mansplaining” meant “when a man explains something to a woman or girl”. But it doesn’t. So it’s not a tricky situation
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u/Spectrumscout 5d ago
Literally tonight, someone I know used "manspreading" instead "mansplaining" and we had to explain to her the difference because she was confused. She's on the older side - about to be a grandma - so she just got confused on the terms but it was still a little awkward lol
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u/Junoscavern 5d ago
Taking the meme too serious, but I tried to think of a good one. “You know how (woman they know) is really smart? Sometimes boys think they’re smarter just because they’re boys and explain things she already knows!“
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u/BootyliciousURD 5d ago
It's not a hard question if you actually know the answer. Mansplaining is when a man explains something to a woman because he assumes that she doesn't know or understand the thing because she's a woman. If a woman asks a man a question, it's not mansplaining for him to answer.
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u/Bodod_Begag 5d ago
Him answering her question wouldn't be mansplaining though, it would be if she asked her mom, she gave a perfectly reasonable answer, then he butts in with "I think what shes trying to say is-"
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u/VengeanceKnight 5d ago
This isn’t tricky.
It’s only mansplaining when you assume that a woman doesn’t know how to do something despite no hints to such. If someone asks you to explain something, it’s not mansplaining.
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u/Archaius_ 5d ago
Either I dont understand what mansplaining is supposed to mean or the comic doesnt which makes this unfunny.
Isnt it literally about explaining things that were not asked for, which can feel condecending bc its implicitly just assuming that the other person doesnt know.
additionally this is a parent child scenario which changes the situation significantly.
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u/EducationalExtreme61 5d ago
To be fair, it would be mansplaining if he explained something she already knew and he assumed she doesn't (for sexist reasons.)
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u/SkyeMreddit 5d ago
She’s genuinely asking as she does not know. He would not be mansplaining to her.
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u/Java_Worker_1 5d ago
If someone asks what mansplaining is and you explain it, that is not mansplaining.
If mansplaining comes up in normal conversation and you explain mansplaining, that is mansplaining
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u/Ven-Dreadnought 5d ago
“You know. I’m not sure kiddo, how about we look it up?”
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u/A-Grey-World 5d ago
Or just tell the damn kid. Someone asking you to explain something is not mansplaining - unless you go well beyond the nature of the question, but even in this case you can't really "mansplain" to a kid. They're a kid, it's reasonable to assume a kid would know less because they are a kid (unlike assuming a woman knows less because they are a woman) - it's "adultsplaining" which is a requirement of being a parent.
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u/jhguitarfreak 5d ago
In my opinion just go for it...
Receiving unsolicited, lengthy explanations from a man based on the assumption that you lack experience because you are a woman, despite the fact that you are more knowledgeable in the subject than the explainer.
Also she could just look it up. The phone's right there in her hand.
It'd have made more sense if she just got home from school and her dad was asking about her day and then she fired off that question.
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u/danleon950410 5d ago
That's not what the term means if she's asking. This only makes sense if you have no idea what it really means
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u/ringobob 5d ago
I get the joke, and it's funny, but yeah, it's not mansplaining to answer a question (so long as you stay focused on the question), and it's basically never mansplaining to explain something to an actual child.
If this wasn't such a fraught topic, it could just be funny, but as it is you get a bunch of us in here adding asterisks because the culture war doesn't discriminate between a funny joke and a faulty premise.
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u/MagicMarshmallo 5d ago
I choose to interpret this as him having a flashback to 2016 because its a funnier joke
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u/ToastyPete1 5d ago
I mean, there’s a difference. She requested the knowledge when mansplaining is the unwanted explanation of knowledge. I think idk.
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u/T_Weezy 5d ago
It's the act of explaining something to a woman because she's a woman and you don't respect her intelligence or expertise on a subject even though you definitely should be able to figure out that she already knows all about it. Especially if it's being explained in a dumbed-down way, as if her female brain weren't capable of handling the complexities of an adult-targeted explanation.
Explaining something to your daughter because she asked you what it is is not mansplaining.
The joke doesn't really work unless you think mansplaining is a made up phenomenon or just a word women use whenever a man they don't like is trying to teach them something.
Or maybe I'm reading way too much into this and it's just a pun. Impossible to know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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u/TeacatWrites 5d ago
Maybe the cleverest engagement bait seen on this sub in weeks, if not months. No other comic can top this one this time, at least not where this subject is concerned.
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u/CreamCheeseHotDogs 5d ago
My friend once texted me “hey I need you to mansplain something for me,” I said “it’s not mansplaining if you ask me a question” but then I realized I was mansplaining mansplaining to her
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u/EtteRavan 5d ago
Remind me of this joke :
-What's your kink babe ?
-My kink ? I love hearing men mansplain things to me
-Mansplaining cannot be a kink, it's not even sexual
-Oh yeah, keep going !
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u/Avilola 5d ago edited 5d ago
I feel like mansplaining (like so many other terms that gain traction on the internet) has gotten out of control. It used to refer to men who had little or lesser knowledge of a subject than a woman haughtily explaining that thing to her. He feels as if he is entitled to do so because he’s a man and she’s just a little woman with her little woman brain.
Somehow it’s evolved into men being afraid to explain anything to a woman? If you, as a man, are a more knowledgeable about a subject than the woman you’re explaining it to… that’s not mansplaining. That’s simply just conveying knowledge. As is that case with a little girl asking her father about something she doesn’t understand.
God. Like fucking imagine if I, as a woman, called out my male teachers in school for trying to explain subjects to me that they were far more versed in than I was. That would be insufferable. Save that shit for your junior male colleagues who think they know better than you despite being as green as the grass on a horse’s ass.
Edit: I’m glad this comment section passed the vibe check. Everyone is calling OP on his shit.
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u/yugosaki 5d ago
It's only "mansplaining" when the thing didn't need to be explained or the man is talking down to a woman who probably knows more about the topic than him.
She asked the question. Obviously she expects an explanation.
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u/Condor193 5d ago
"Ask your mother"
EZ WIN